General Discussion • Re: Pale Moon's PR Problem

Thank you for telling us your story! Let us try to draw lessons from that. One is that supporting older operating systems can, ironically enough, bring new people aboard. Since Pale Moon, unlike the giants, still supports 7, I think we are already doing everything right on this front. If Australis had brought you aboard here, then I think that just means BasiliskDev is onto something.

As you have told it, I think intelligent, curious users like you will look into the actual diversity of browsers on their own initiative. In this sense, even Wikipedia counts as advertising! I want to have enough hope in the youth that they would not treat YouTube videos (or even worse, LLM queries) as exhausting the subject.

Ubuntu and Mint release otherwise identical editions with different desktop environments, so laymen unaccustomed to appearance being mutable in an OS can learn this concept in their own time. React OS releases just one version of itself, but lets the user pick whether to pick a classical, Luna- or Metro-like interface on first launch. Either approach could work for Pale Moon, to make it more obvious to a generation which has grown up with nothing but guano minimalism that Pale Moon can easily look familiar if they want, without upsetting us older users who see nothing wrong with Firefox 2, 3 or 4.

Reflecting on our reputation also calls attention to how unfair the whole matter is. If someone went to law claiming that Pale Moon was insecure, he would need satisfy the judge that Pale Moon fails to patch vulnerabilities at a rate substantially greater than the major browsers, such that it poses a risk to the prudent user going about his day online. He could never meet this burden of proof, of course. Gossip, online or off, has much lower standards, forcing us to prove our innocence. The wrong idea that browsers are too complex for a small team to secure is, as we know, hard to displace.